by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I keep saying, I’m the red headed step child of my family when it comes to politics. Everyone else in my family is a bedrock conservative. And, as such, I decided to use that to see if my idea (stolen from How Democracies Die) that the USA should try a Unity Ticket in 2024 might work.
The results — nope.
The reason is, we are so divided that the idea of doing such a thing — even with an extensive power sharing agreement in place is so alien that the conservatives in my family simply can’t process it. They can’t seem to see that just because someone identifies as a Democrat solely for the purposes of heading a Unity Ticket in 2024 (without changing any of their conservative policies) doesn’t mean they’ve succumb to the woke cancel culture mob that is the Democratic Party.
So, we’re back to square one.
Or, put another way, something really, really dramatic would have to happen for something as abstract as “have a Unity Ticket in 2024 that will make everyone unhappy but will save American democracy for at least one more presidential cycle” will make sense to Traditionalists like my family members. They hate, hate, hate, hate, hate anything to do with Democrats to the point that they would rather support an autocrat that save democracy. So, in a sense, they’re Good Germans waiting for the opportunity to be Good Americans.
The cancer that is MAGA has simply grown too big and powerful for the quick fix solution of a Unity Ticket to take place. Though if some sort of tragedy happened, something big, that kind of preempted our slip into autocracy, THEN, I think you might be able to sell a Unity Ticket to Traditionalists.
But, for the time being, we’re fucked.
In late 2024 – early 2025, we’re either going to have a civil war because of a “national divorce” or white minority rule will be established once and for all. And if it’s the latter my family — whom I love dearly — will be cheering that transition on.
It won’t be until things get personal — when ICE rounds me up for getting drunk and saying President DeSantis is a cocksucker — that they will grow alarmed at the loss of freedom they’ve taken for granted all their lives. When the red line of it getting personal is crossed, THEN they might think back and realize a Unity Ticket might have been a good idea.
But, alas, it’s not looking so great for the idea now, when it would matter.
